Case by case, anonymity can be necessary
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Taking On A Spammer
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· Score: 1
Interesting. You say:
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Why? Well:
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If I correctly assume (and please disabuse me of the notion that your specific example isn't meant to be applied generally if that's the case) that you're saying "People who want to be anonymous just want to escape accountability," then I have to ask "Why not?"
There are plenty of times when escaping accountability is a very, very good thing. Some of those rabble-rousing pamphleteers who helped rile up those New World colonists into a revolutionary frenzy certainly had a good reason to want to escape responsibility. If you were some oppressed peasant getting beaten senseless because of trumped-up charges brought against you by the local mullah and you had some pictures of said mullah engaging in a sexual act with an animal or child not his wife, wouldn't it be just spiffy if you could post those pics to the net in complete anonymity?
In both cases, and a few thousand more that a little imagination could dream up, the reason total anonymity would be a good thing is not because, in general, escaping responsibility is a good thing. Anonymity in these cases is good because the price you pay for accepting responsibility can and often is set by people or institutions that are flat-out evil.
If you live in a place or time where the people who have power to punish you will use that power to hurt you for simply exercising the natural rights that all humans should have, then total anonymity can be a darn valuable thing. Where folks disagree these days is on whether we live in a world that meets that description.
That decision is up to you. Personally, I think that even if you believe that the political powers in your jurisdiction are moral, just, and competent, I'd still advise you keep the option of being anonymous just in case things go south in the future. Who knows what the world will look like in 20 years? I don't. I want the option.
Better yet, I wish total anonymity was the default.
Through long association with a variety of interest-based clubs and at-work organizations, I've learned the hard way that this is a very important question. You don't know ugly till you've seen a bunch of people screaming at each other in a power struggle to take over a silly little hobby group.
I've seen two successful formulas.
The first is: make it democratic. This is the one everyone aspires to but rarely achieves. A club usually has a core group that first thought it up. Can they be trusted to establish *truly* democratic procedures that may well, in the future, result in their baby being yanked from their control? Mighty unlikely. However, it is possible. Just make sure that everything is out in the open. Generally, things are set up that are nominally democratic but as soon as the founders start not getting unanimous votes of confidence on every issue, they start "gaming" the rules to keep themselves in power. To avoid this, some precautions are wise. To wit: The books *must* be independently audited at regular intervals and *must* be made available for members to review on demand. If you have someone who can enforce Robert's Rules, that's cool. It's just not very likely that anyone wants to go to the trouble. (I remember an experience I had with a fairly new hobby club once. I moved the previous question. All I got were blank stares. It was actually kinda funny, in retrospect.)
The second way of setting up a club is intellectually more honest and can result in a great club. The founder(s) can simply say "Join my club." They can then run it as they see fit. They can charge whatever dues they want, run meetings as they see fit, put on any events they want to, and report it all on Schedule C of their tax returns as a small business (which is exactly what it is). In these situations, the business owner (founder) simply has to keep in mind that he won't make any money unless he provides a high-quality experience for his customers (the club members). If he entirely ignores them, they'll just leave and start their own club. But if the founder can stay reasonable, this sort of organization makes for much more efficient administration. It's the only way to have a club where it's in the self-interest of the people running the club to make sure that the members have a good time.
The only clubs where I've seen *fatal* organizational errors are clubs that are founded and run by one or a few people but that claim to be democratic. That sort of setup is a recipe for failure.
Does anybody remember GEOS and Geoworks? It was a wonderfully cool OS and software suite that replaced most of DOS and provided a gorgeous GUI, excellent software (including an especially advanced word processor/semi-DTP program), speed, and "full pre-emptive multitasking" (argue on this one all you want). It ran like a champ on my 10Mhz 286 with 20 meg HD, 1 meg of RAM and 512K of video memory.
And it reached a usable level of maturity about the time MS released Windows 3.0. Case closed.
Where is it now? It morphed into a pen/portable/gadget OS and is, I suppose, still alive. Barely. (Go to geoworks.com to check it out.)
The point? Be is great and gorgeous as a desktop OS. Chasing the apparently fashionable market (appliances) of the moment, though, can be a foolish move when it involves abandoning/de-emphasizing your core competencies.
Careful, Be! I don't want to see you ignominiously fade away.
You might be able to find 30 people for the meatspace program who possess the mental ability, the spiritual strength, and the necessarily high level of physical fitness required to get through the program. That is dependent, of course, on the applicants suffering from sufficient mental maladjustment that they would actually volunteer to have absolutely no life for a solid year. It's also dependent on whatever extraordinary support measures these folks can get, be it the support of their peers or from other sources (that, I hope, you are contemplating providing).
But for online folks? Fugedaboutit. It just won't happen. No one will be able to maintain that pace for that time while motivated only by their internal drives and the flickering images on a CRT.
My question, then, is why bother with the online component since it's clearly doomed to failure? Or, do you define success for the online component differently, e.g. if people drop in and out, taking only a bit here and a bit there - would that equal success in your eyes?
So where do we go from here? Pinkerton isn't going to do the right thing, they're going to do the profitable thing. We, as a community, need to start doing whatever we can to take the profit out of WAVE. How? A few random thoughts (some of which have already been seen in previous posts):
1. Start sending in reports. Use a pay phone and start reporting the people who have the resources to best hurt the program: lawyer's kids (all the better to drag this crap into court quicker), popular jocks (so that the program appears to the customers to be targeting the wrong people), congresscritter's kids (to lay a foundation for possible political solutions), children of the members of the task force that thought this up (because the taskforce members deserve pain), Pinkerton employee's kids (demoralizing the enemy never hurts), and more.
Give some thoughts to these reports. Script them out if you have to. Make sure that your reports meet the criteria for pass-along and throw in some juicy details to get the security drones salivating.
2. Start hitting the potential customers. Make sure that schools know that if they participate, they are going to have to answer some tough questions. For example, if you have children attending a school that partakes in the program, demand to see the procedures for security on the tips they get from Pinkerton. Demand to know how they are safeguarded, what the retention schedule is, what actions will be taken when a tip is received, etc. For any private school, demand that their contract with you be modified to require that they report to you any tip received on your kids. Heck, demand open disclosure of the number and severity of *all* the tips received by the schools. Any lawyers in the house? In Texas, we could possibly use the Open Records Act to demand these things be made public. I don't know how it would work in the original state, but there's gotta be a way. If enough of these reports are disclosed to the public (remember, we're inflating the number of reports under action #1, above) and the public gets to see that there are never any shootings afterward, the program can start to just look like a waste of time and money.
3. Make this an issue in school board elections. "If you support anonymous snitching without adequate safeguards, ala WAVE, you won't get my vote! And I'll tell everyone I know to vote against you, too!"
4. Make sure that school boards hear about this during budget meetings. "This is a waste of money. We're spending good money here but getting nothing in return. We're just harassing a bunch of people who don't deserve it and setting ourselves up for lawsuits!"
5. Ancillary point: Demand of the school board of any school district that adopts the program that they increase funding for liability insurance. "After all, you guys bought this program that's sure to get us sued. You've got to protect the school district by doubling the amount of liability coverage."
6. Who's gonna start the anti-WAVE website? We've got to have a central clearinghouse for information. We need to know when WAVE is being considered for adoption by a school or when it is adopted. In that way, we can target the right individuals at that school for action. We can find and feed info to the people in a position to fight. Furthermore, such a site will provide a place for horror stories to accumulate and, by extension, a way to source expert witnesses (kids who've been hurt by all this) to testify about the practical evil of this sytem during the inevitable lawsuits. Perhaps just a continuing "WAVEWatch" feature on Slashdot would to the trick, or maybe even just a mailing list.
7. And I'll probably think of 20 more things by this afternoon. So can you! Reply to this and add to the list. Good plans of action start with wild brainstorming sessions. No matter how crazy an idea is, post it. It may inspire someone who needs it.
I work for a large federal agency where we're supposed to be C2. We're also mandated to use NT as our *only* OS for anything below certain minis and our mainframes. (Luckily, I work in an excepted function.) Sometime back, when it finally became clear that NT couldn't be certified C2, the powers-that-be simply issued an edict that NT had (and this is a precise quote) "achieved C2 functionality." In non-government language, that roughly translates to "we hafta use it so we're pretending it's OK."
As another poster has said, ya gotta love the government sometimes. Who else can simply change the rules when they become inconvenient?
It helps, of course, that our CIO apparently bows and prays to Redmond thrice daily.:-)
...while I devolve into management consultant/workflow analysis mode.
This story reminds me of those four-place charts that we've all seen that prioritize tasks. Draw a square. Quarter it. Across the top, label the two columns "Urgent" and "Not Urgent." On the side, label the two rows "Important" and "Not Important." Now throw your tasks into those spaces. If a task winds up in the upper left corner, it's urgent and important. In the lower right, it's not urgent and not important.
It seems to me that all the speech was saying was (based, of course, on the extremely limited outline in the article that may or may not be accurate) that maybe the privacy-concerned members of our community were putting things in the wrong boxes. The threat of Big Brother knocking down your door is important, but it may not be as urgent as we like to think. On the other hand, keeping a kid from being shot is both urgent and pretty damn important.
Well, fine.
That attitude is important as far as it goes. Accusing privacy nuts of not seeing the forest for the trees can have a ring of truth. The problem, though, is that Big Brothers do eventually come to knock down doors. Neglecting important things (threats to privacy and, indeed, life and limb from government) because they aren't immediately urgent is a very dangerous thing, a veritable slippery slope of apathy that is mighty dangerous to ski on. Ignore the tasks in that "Important but Not Urgent" box and, sooner or later, as any experienced entrepeneur will tell you, you'll find those tasks jumping onto the "Urgent" side of the chart and you'll be ill-prepared to deal with them.
Stephenson is right in that we shouldn't argue principles to the exclusion of taking care of daily life. Unfortunately, though, we must adhere to principles, fret over them, agitate to protect them, and otherwise use our energy to make the world a better place for the great-great-grandchildren we will never see. If we don't, we ensure that those principles, those freedoms we took too much for granted will eventually be tested in ways no one desires. Neglect to fight the good fight in boardrooms, courts, and in politician's offices and someday you or your descendants will be forced to fight the good fight in the streets, by spilling real blood.
It's been said the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Well, that ain't just whistlin' Dixie. It's as true today as it ever was.
I'm an SA at a large law enforcement agency. Among my responsibilities are the computers our officers use in the field. They carry large amounts of SBU (sensitive but unclassified, for those of you familiar with the protection classes used by us feds) data everywhere they go. After every three fumble-fingered attempts to log on results in a lock, I assign a valid password, do a passwd -f , hand-deliver the replacement and stand over them while they log on and change passwords. They view it as a royal PITA.
Good.
Since I started doing it this way, the number of forgotten passwords has dropped to zero and the screwed-up logons are mighty rare. Bad consequences for screwing up are a useful tool in convincing people not to screw up. Of course, I only have about 250 users to watch over. In a bigger organization, this level of personal service would be difficult. For my situation, though, this works fine. (It helps that I'm a former officer so I can get away with bullying my users like this.)
btw - We are a 100% SCO Unix shop (OS 5.0.4), from the servers to the laptops. There's not a hint of Windows anywhere on my network. And that's the way I like it.:-)
Over and over and over again it has been pointed out that published criteria for identifying potentially violent kids select far, far more folks who are benign but different than folks with a propensity to violence. It's part of the methodology. The errors are built in.
In some cases, such as the Secret Service profiling of potential threats that recently made the news, the identified "potentials" are evaluated by highly trained, experienced personnel who can make, on the whole, reasonable judgements about how to proceed. That's not the case here. No matter how good the Pinkerton guys are (note that I didn't say "goons;" no use resurrecting past bad acts), a program like WAVE will produce so many false positives that they can't all receive the careful attention that would be required to weed out the bad referrals. It just can't happen. People aren't lines of code that can be grep'd out of the whole based on discrete, uncontovertible characteristics that identify violent tendencies.
So here's my question: How on earth do these folks think they can ensure that whoever winds up looking at these referrals does a competent job of making decisions that can, if made badly, have horrible consequences for innocent people?.And by "innocent people," I mean the folks who are wrongly fingered.
As I approach my 40th birthday and look back on my life, I breathe a sigh of relief that we didn't have things like this when I was a kid. Why? Because I know in my heart of hearts that I would have been fingered under such a program, even though I turned out just fine.
It probably wouldn't be too difficult to find a couple of thousand (or a few hundred thousand) other folks who can say the same. What do the Pinkerton folks have to say to people like me? "You were a weird kid and someone should have been spying on you?" To what purpose?
Pardon me while I go off in a blue funk and ponder how to make all this better. I may have no kids of my own, but I owe to every child my dedication to stopping the forces that would spy on them for being sad or smart or inspired or insightful or thoughtful.
This puzzles me. Where I went, Rice U. in Houston, we were essentially *required* to critique our profs. This was a long time ago and things may have changed by now, but it was a good system at the time. Our write-ups (they didn't have to be huge, but most students took them quite seriously) were used by the University in the evaluation of profs. How much impact did they have? According to my advisor at the time "They're the difference between getting tenure and not getting it." It would be rare for negative reviews to have any more impact than that, but if someone were as big a jerk as the prof who's suing teacherreview, they would have certainly caused the university to closely monitor the teacher in question.
Other schools don't invite students to rate their instructors? Other schools don't take action based on what those students have to say? If so, that just ain't right.
try Kalispel Metal Products. It'll be heavy, but those guys will custom build anything for a price. Nearly all the Olympic Shooting Team members use their products for good reason. Talk about quality! Slip one into a suitably courier-like cover, and you might have something appealing.
Of course, this applies basically if you want a travel case. If you want something light enough to carry around, look elsewhere. Personally, I think the folks who specialize in camera bags do a great job. Domke and Billingham are excellent names and I wouldn't be surprised if they had something that appealed to you.
Mattel's signature product is Barbie. They help throw a big Barbie convention every year. It's attended by thousands of folks, including swarms of press. This year, it will be in Oklahoma City in June.
Is there a Linux/Open Source/whatever group in OKC that could organize a protest? You could *definitely* get local news air time. You could probably get a lot more exposure than that. In fact, if you play your cards right, you could tap into the anti-Mattel sentiment in the Barbie world. Ya see, Mattel has sent out hundreds of cease and desist letters and filed more than a few lawsuits against Barbie fans who dared to post anything even slightly negative about Barbie on the web. Pink Anger is the first group that comes to mind. Hook up with some of the more radical members therein and you could definitely aggravate the heartburn of many Mattel executives.
"...at the USPTO (not in the software division) and I am disturbed by how their compensation and advancement structure is so quantity oriented"
Right on.
I find it fascinating that such practices still exist where *judgement* is so critical. Has everyone forgotten that Congress had a collective fit not so long ago about a similar situation at the IRS? Paying attention to production numbers caused employees to fail to discharge their duty to the public fairly. Instead, employees were busy just racking up dollars collected or taxpayers audited; fairness and insightful analysis got thrown out the window in some cases. So what happened? Public hearings, much press coverage, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and donning of hair shirts, that's what. Eventually, laws got changed and those abuses were knocked down.
The fact that most of the abuses didn't actually exist and we're now finding out that it's not good to structure the tax law so that tax collectors are afraid to collect tax is beside the point, here. The lesson where the USPTO is concerned is that only a broad-based public perception of harm to innocent individuals can produce the sort of anecdotal sound bites that get laws changed. We need to find some people whose lives have been ruined by this crap and start trotting them out in front of the evening news cameras. This may not be the intellectually honest approach we'd like to see, but since when has a reasoned explanation of the harm caused by a law, government entity, or silly regulation sufficed to get the situation changed over the objection of moneyed interests? No time I can think of.
We need poster children. Anybody have any nominations?
I think lots of folks are confusing "no sales tax" with "no obligation to collect sales tax." The two are the not the same. When the author of the article says:
"...much online retailing involves purchases that would otherwise be conducted with paper catalogs and 800 numbers--and thus not taxed anyway. "
he's being a tad misleading. No, the purchases wouldn't be taxed but that's not because tax isn't owed. It's just because the tax is hard to collect. Later, he goes on to say:
"If states had a cost-effective method of policing mail-order sales, they would already be collecting taxes on them. (Most states with sales taxes ostensibly require "user taxes" on goods purchased elsewhere.) The only rational explanation why states do not collect significant taxes on out-of-state purchases is that it is simply not worth the trouble. Collection costs for the government, business, and consumers evidently exceed the expected revenue. "
he touches on correcting his earlier mistake, but still doesn't quite grok the situation.
Let's take an example. You retire and move to Florida. After settling in for a few months, you decide to buy a housefull of furniture to replace your old, ratty stuff. So you make the pilgrimage to High Point NC, the center of the furniture universe (at least in the U.S.), check out the huge manufacturer's showrooms, and buy USD$50K in furniture for delivery to your home in Jupiter FL.
The furniture company doesn't collect the sales tax because the sale is to an out-of-state destination. They have no obligation to collect tax for FL. **BUT** the state of FL **DOES** require the payment of sales tax on sales into the state. FL just doesn't know about the sale yet. Theoretically, when you receive your housefull of furniture, you're supposed to contact the state sales tax folks, report the purchase, and remit the sales tax directly to them. You, the purchaser, are still supposed to pay the tax.
Big deal, right? Nobody ever reports those sales, right? Well, maybe, but that doesn't mean you escape paying the tax. Florida made a big splash in the taxation press years ago when *exactly* the scenario described above (furniture ordered from out of state by retirees)began happening with some frequency. They began posting sales tax people at weigh stations and having them tag along on truck inspections. The sales tax people would inspect the manifest, determine the value of the merchandise being delivered, and send out bills for sales tax to the recipients.
So what's my point?
Sales tax on cross-border sales has always existed. The people who want to "tax the internet" in this area, at least, have a pretty firm footing. They are only trying to use new tools to enforce laws already on the books.
Of course, they're screwing up the whole process royally by trying to foist the responsibility for collecting off on the sellers. They don't like the idea of billing each and every one of their residents individually for their internet purchases.
And also of course, the practical problems pointed out in the article basically swamp any point I've made in this post. Internet taxation has so many problems for so little reward that it'll turn out to be an unprofitable PITA.
...sarcasm on The solution? As another poster has already suggested, junk the sales tax everywhere. While we're at it, let's junk the bad 'ole income tax and every other tax that nobody likes (that's all of 'em, btw) and go live in some Utopia where no government needs any revenue to pay for any basic governmental functions because everyone lives in respectful peace and harmony and takes care of each other. ...sarcasm off
While I understand and accept the basic fairness of 'net taxation, I just don't think it's practical. So what to do? I dunno. If I figger it out, I'll git me a job wit one o'dem fancy think tank thingies...
I'm not kidding, here. For inspiration that applies to this contest, check/. for the Beacon School piece that was posted a couple of stories back. I went to their site and opened a whole bunch of the student home pages. Some of them seem to have just discovered frames, some have blown off the whole idea, and some of them include so many animations they make hamsterdance.com look dignified. BUT - Some of them have small, simple pages that communicate elegantly without being simplistic. I will definitely rip off...er...derive inspiration from some of those pages for my on-the-job html.
What I find interesting is the way a subpoena for email might be worded and what actions it might require of the person holding data.
I work for a large government agency where all email is saved forever because everyone is accountable for everything they do for all time. That's fine. We're public sector law enforcement; we should have such rules. Recently, though, an employee sued the agency and requested all email files. Our lawyers argued that such a subpoena would be overbroad and would reveal a great many private things shouldn't be made public. The judge agreed and a compromise was worked out. Several years worth of Microsoft Exchange backup tapes were sequentially reloaded on a system set up for the purpose. Each time a tape was restored, all files were searched for a text string matching the name of the woman who brought the suit. Then, all emails that contained her name were *printed out* and delivered to her lawyers. Not surprisingly, lots of folks had been jabbering about this woman in email, so there were boxes and boxes of printouts. It took the poor admin assigned the task literally weeks to complete, but at least there was no way for all sorts of extraneous data to go public.
Contrast that situation with the situation of the airline employees who found their computers seized. Were they entirely without recourse? Were they not given a chance to produce the documents without having to turn over their hardware? I don't know, but I do know that if such a thing happened to me, I'd be less than happy. I have lots conventionally encrypted files that are relatively safe since the only copy of the password is in my head. But would I be willing to sit out a contempt citation to protect that data? Talk about feeling conflicted!!
Short side note: There are a zillion different circumstances when testimony *can* be compelled. I'm surprised by the number of posters who don't understand that 5th amendment protections are often non-existent, especially in civil actions. They can even be circumvented in criminal actions rather easily, assuming you aren't the primary target of the prosecution. I guess high school civics classes aren't what they used to be.:-)
This brings up two personally relevant items for me that others may find illustrative.
The first is laserdiscs. They were advertised as permanent. After all, what could go wrong? The media was sealed in plastic and couldn't get any air, so deterioration was impossible, right? Wrong! "Laser rot" became obvious within a few years of the introduction of the technology. There are now gazillions of first-generation (and later) discs that are simply unreadable. I have dozens of them and can personally attest to the sinking feeling that comes with seeing data degrade and become unavailable. (In a similar vein, music CDs will degrade while the vinyl they "replaced" will, given proper care, soldier on for another century or two. And records sound better/hold more data, too. CDs were supposed to be an improvement?!?) The lesson? Don't trust industry shills who tell you a technology is good for 100 years. They simply don't know.
The second example is more personal. As a former photographer, I have some works that I want to preserve forever. Maybe I'm conceited enough to think that in a thousand years my works will be found and I'll be proclaimed a great artist. Maybe I'm just anal. Either way, I want my photos to be around for a long, long time. Now, properly processed silver halide-based film is pretty stable. My negatives will last a long time. But for the ultimate in longevity, I've begun making platinum-based prints on a variety of media, including plastic squares and enamel tiles. If I can find a source of enameled titanium squares (about 10 inches or so), I'll have a combination of media and chemicals that can reasonably be expected to last for a couple of thousand years. The lesson? True long-term data integrity sometimes requires an open-minded approach. If I rejected platinum processes because they were 100 years old, I'd have never discovered their permanence.
Until someone can come up with a novel way to store data that is truly permanent, I'll rely on the "bigger hard drives, cheaper, every year" theory to keep my data safe. But I don't really feel good about it.
I find it terribly interesting that people shout back and forth about "I'm an employee!", "I'm an independent contractor!" or some other such thing without the foggiest notion of what they *actually* are. In fact, the definition of employee and of independent contractor are matters of law. No contract that you can sign between yourself and someone who pays you money can change that. If the contract says you're an independent, if both parties agree you're an independent, if nearly everyone accepts that you're an independent BUT your individual circumstances meet the definition of an employee, then you ARE an employee. Period. You can sign contracts and make agreements to the contrary all day long and it doesn't matter one whit.
Different agencies at the federal, state, and local level work under different statutes. And yes, they are a mess, generally using vague language that may well result in someone being an employee to the Internal Revenue Service but an independent contractor to the Department of Labor. Or vice-versa. Most agencies, though, wind up falling back on the 20 common law factors used by the IRS or a variation thereof. (That situation is in flux right now, but the 20 common law factors still rule for tax purposes, even if the new kinder and gentler IRS is so gun-shy that they're not really enforcing them.) Take a look at them on IRS Form SS-8, Determination of Employee Work Status For Purposes of Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax.
Work through that form and you might be surprised. I think a lot of "independent contractors" will find that they are actually employees. And if they're employees, aren't they entitled to the benefits a company extends to employees?
Linux has been on the COTS list at some agencies for a long time. At my agency, it's approved for DNS servers "at boundary," although Win NT Server 4.0 is the primary platform. That doesn't explain why some poking around on our intranet reveals a number of sites with a decidedly counter(internal)culture feel. Y'know, sites where anyone can pick up a copy of Perl or Linux. Sites that display little "Best Viewed With vi" buttons. I get the feeling there's more penetration into the government market than anyone yet appreciates.
Still, on paper, M$ has a near-total monopoly around here. For example, the only authorized "web-maker" (direct quote from our official COTS list) software on our COTS list is FrontPage. Theoretically, I'm not allowed to edit my web pages in vi. At least I get a smile on my face every time I do.:-)
This argument is based on the premise that the error of using excessive force doesn't precipitate fights that would otherwise have been avoided. One need only compare the results of the local sherrif's visits to Koresh & Co (courteous and professional resolution of the issue at hand) and those of the BATF's visit (eighty-six bodies on the deck) to refute this notion. Given that an error in either direction can produce tragic results, the only responsible policy is to calibrate the application of force to the threat level.
No. Available force should be sufficient to control the situation. While the Andy Taylor school of law enforcement works fine most of the time, I wouldn't want to bet my life on it. IOW, an excess of available force is never a bad thing except that it's a slight waste of money. Of course, when that force is not just available but *used* injudiciously, you wind up with serious heartache, bloodshed, and violations of constitutional rights. But that's not what we're talking about here.
The Waco raid, though, is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. The BATF did not err in the level of resources thrown at the problem. They erred in pursuing their plan after the element of surprise had been compromised. Outside of a war, that's guaranteed to cause grief. Whoever made the decision to proceed after the element of surprise was lost should be hung. Two of the LEOs who died that day were known to me, one as more than an acquaintance though less than a friend. Their senseless deaths still enrage me, as does the senseless destruction of innocent life that eventually resulted from the pantheon of errors committed by law enforcement over the next weeks. But, again, that's not what we're talking about here, is it?
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Your evidence for this rather irresponsible assertion (you are accusing people of perjury and slander, which is itself slanderous if untrue) disappeared somewhere between your keyboard and my screen
Yes, I am accusing people of perjury and slander.
The star witnesses were Colaprete and Long.
For information showing how Colaprete lied his ass off, see the December 9, 1999 edition of The Wall Street Journal. The story, by staff reporter John D. McKinnon, is entitled Highly Publicized Horror Story That Led to Curbs On IRS Quietly Unravels in Virginia Civil Court. In it, you'll find lengthy descriptions of how Colaprete testified to Congress with factual descriptions of things that happened when he was not even present. And more.
For information showing how Long lied her ass off, contact the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and ask for a copy of their report on her allegations. It goes on for pages, point by point, showing that nearly everything she said was unsubstantiated or could not be confirmed, even though they had her cooperation and assistance. (In fairness, she did manage to make a couple of partly-correct minor points about internal workings at the IRS. Her allegations about bad treatment of the public, though, were entirely horseshit.)
Heck, for some good insight into what Long was up to, just review the filings in her suit against the U.S. Government in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, JENNIFER J. LONG, Plaintiff vs. ROBERT E. RUBIN, Secretary of the Treasury, Defendant, CIVIL ACTION NO. H 97-3239. Just her video deposition of August 24, 1998, is enough to make you laugh out loud at her tortured prevarications, cry for all the people she's slandered, and rage at Congress for believing her idiocy.
But politics marches on. For information showing how the Government Accounting Office report that Colaprete and Long lied was suppressed by Senator Roth, see the Tax Analysts story at their document number Doc 1999-19180. Roth, heading up the Senate Finance Committee that conducted the hearings, kept the final report secret for reasons he has failed to adequately explain. Perhaps because the report would show that he and his committee were played like a violin by Colaprete and Long?
When you've read those documents, you'll see that no evidence disappeared between my keyboard and your screen. I just failed to cite it right off the bat because I was under the mistaken impression that nearly everyone already knew these things.
I find some of the comments about, to paraphrase, "procedural issues" during the raid to be a tad naive.
There was a time when I carried a commission and conducted numerous CIVIL seizures of property for a large federal agency. Those are different in many ways from what is being described here, but some of the experience carries over. The objects of my seizures usually knew I was coming and often would have their property stacked and inventoried, waiting for my arrival. When I had my way, things were far more casual.
Be that as it may, there were often cases where I knew, going in, that things were going to be contentious. Maybe I'd take armed escorts. Maybe I'd just take more unarmed officers. In a number of cases I found myself wishing we'd come into a situation with more force because the control I was able to maintain over the premises was a bit too tenuous for comfort.
With that as background, I'd like to make a few specific points.
The number of people taking part in the raid was not, from the description, excessive. Just controlling all the entrances and exits and having enough eyes to watch everybody could easily take a half-dozen folks.
The intimidation factor present was not unusual or uncalled for. When a raid happens, the safety of everyone depends on the ability of the officers to lock down the premises and control the actions of everyone inside. That means moving quickly and with sufficient force that no one even contemplates active resistance. That also means that, in the overwhelming majority of raids, the subject of the raid feels terribly picked on because of the excessive government resources directed at them and how the whole situation makes them feel. I'm sorry about that but it's necessary. The alternative (trying to more-precisely balance the forces brought to bear with the perceived level of potential resistance) would mean that when the government makes a mistake and underestimates the resistance to be encountered, bullets start flying and people start dying. Saving most people in most raids from feeling intimidated by using less force and manpower isn't worth the cost of occasionally getting into a shootout.
The failure to get everything right on the inventory isn't surprising. I've seized inventories consisting of hundreds of items and I know that mistakes happen. What surprises me is that the agents were able to easily dig out the wrong items and correct the inventory on the spot.
One final point - the raid description is coming from someone who wasn't there when it started. That means this article starts out with bunches of second-hand info that is, basically by definition, less reliable than eyewitness testimony. Take it all with a grain of salt for now. After all, as we saw in 1998 and 1999 with the Senate hearings investigating the IRS, just because people tell a sad story doesn't mean it's true. (FYI for those of you who didn't already know - In the months since the IRS hearings, the star witnesses have basically been shown to have been lying their asses off.)
Just my $.02. I agree that government raids have been done badly, for political or evil reasons, and that people have been needlessly hurt in the past. I just want to stress that we have no idea who's wearing the white, black, and gray hats in this one and we probably won't know for a long, long time.
We draw the line (here in the United States) where the Second Amendment to our Constitution draws it. That text refers to a right to keep and bear arms, not artillery. The two terms were self-evidently distinct to the people who voted on the thing. Both terms have evolved over the years and I'm not wont to write pages of exposition on the subject. Check out a good military history/textbook.
Getting back to the subject at hand, though, your question does bring up a good parallel between gun rights and DVD rights, that being the distinction between things individuals should be able to do (bear arms; copy for your own use) and things that governments (arguably) have a legit interest in regulating or prohibiting (artillery/heavy weapons; efforts to prevent commercial-level piracy).
It's amazing how a consistent philosophical perspective brings order to chaos, isn't it? I guess that's why ESR's sig on this particular email just doesn't bother me. When you think deeply enough, it *is* on-topic.
Everyone was looking for the Magical Productivity Bullet of Total Quality, to the point where they didn't even give the methods they were trying a chance to work.
Hear, hear!
I was one of the lucky and very rare people who got onto a project where TQ was: (1) taught, (2) implemented, and (3) given the time and support required for success.
Even in my own organization, nearly everyone got #1 and #2, but #3 was neglected. With us (some kind of radical fluke situation, I'm now convinced), we saw all the wonderful performance gains and productivity increases that TQ promised. We also saw the initial drop in productivity while we got into the method. It was during that time that every other project I'm familiar with got shut down. Some of these methodologies do work.
Ultimately, my conclusion was that various methods work when they are committed to and given time to work. They "get everybody on the same page." Oftentimes, they provide a common frame of reference and language for describing problems that make achieving goals easy once everyone knows the language and uses it religiously! Getting to that point, though, takes time. And time is what most IT shops just don't have.
These systems exist for many of the same reasons we have our jargon. By adopting a common language, we can communicate quickly with our peers. That's valuable. How would you like to be forced to explain every programming problem in language my completely non-technical mother could understand? It could be done, but it wouldn't be worth the effort. These methodologies accomplish the same thing with management problems as our tech jargon gives us with tech problems - they give everyone a common language and base of understanding on which successful communication can be built.
But half-assed implementations are doomed to failure. And nearly everything gets done half-assed these days.:-(
I think I appreciate ergo setups more than most people. My best friend has carpal tunnel, severely exacerbated by fibromyalgia. When she has a good day, she has a good day. When she has a bad day, her husband has to brush her teeth for her.
With that in mind, I was very enthused about a year ago when my employer put together a union/management team to begin changing the workplace and upgrading it to OSHA compliance as far as ergonomics. After lots of meetings, we put over 200 people in full ergo setups and learned a few things along the way. Here's a smattering:
1. Classes in using all these new toys were absolutely necessary. For example, every computer is now on a multi-adjustable corner metier table that makes perfect positioning a snap *after* you've been to class. People who tried to set them up before receiving formal instruction tended to wind up with weird and painful configurations.
2. When picking an adjustable table, make sure the keyboard surface is height- and tilt-adjustable completely separately from the CRT.
3. Those expensive gel-type wrist rests are *wonderful*! Everyone seems to love them.
4. When we bought supplies at a "trial" ratio (getting just a couple of units for every dozen people to try so that we could see who wanted things before committing money), we found that scarcity makes people want things. For example, experience has shown that only about 10 percent of users will actually use a separate foot rest. (Ours are nice ones by Rubbermaid.) Thus, we bought them on a ratio of one to five users and figured they'd get passed around till the people that actually needed them wound up with them. Ha! Not a chance! As soon as the workers saw that these things were going to be scarce, they all suddenly felt a need to latch onto one. The initial shipment went like loaves of bread off the back of a U.N. relief truck and the have-nots have been screaming for the things ever since. (Unfortunately, the money it will take to equip everybody isn't in the budget right now.) I know that when we finally get one for each person, most of them will wind up in a corner, gathering dust. But compliance with the Union agreement trumps all else and we'll have to find the money.
5. As for telephone headsets, I consider them a valuable ergo accessory. Unfortunately, we bungled their distribution the same way as the footrests.
6. Chairs were a huge problem. If you're putting new chairs in a large unionized shop, do what we did: Let the Union pick the chair. People are pretty picky about where they park their butts all day. We knew that whatever we chose would be hated by someone enough for them to file a grievance. By letting the Union do the choosing, management totally avoided the problem. "You don't like your chair? It hurts your back? Sure, you can file a grievance. Just figure out a way to file it against your own Union! Hahahahaha!!!"
7. As a Union member, I oversaw the chair selection. We narrowed the field to about 10 different chairs based on basic OSHA specs and the ability of vendors to meet those specs and get us samples. We then had every employee come into the sample display room in rotation, sit in every chair, and vote. The final selection was a high-backed fully adjustable chair with the name "SuperFurntiture" embossed on the back. I have no idea who actually made the thing, but just about everybody could live with them. They don't have too many adjustments and they don't have any detachable accessories, but everybody can get them into a configuration that's acceptable.
8. Another chair that was available for vote broke during the voting. You know that when a chair back snaps and dumps an employee on their butt right in front of everyone, nobody is going to vote for that one! However, this particular chair was "modular" according to the sales rep. Everything could unplug and be replaced. At first, this looked like a versatile option. We eventually realized, however, that what it really meant was having to buy, warehouse, and install a mind-boggling array of accessories that would make for serious administrative headaches. I was very glad this chair broke and I would counsel people to avoid any such chairs that seem to have been designed by guys who spent too much time playing with Transformers when they were kids.
9. The Aeron chair referenced in the lead-in was a very interesting case. People either loved or hated it. There was almost no in-between. The problem with it is that it's TOO adjustable. It uses a huge wind-up (watch-type? I don't know what to call it.) spring to set the basic firmness of the chair. Loosened up, it's suitable for a 70-pound waif. Tightened up, it's suitable for a 300-pound guy like me. Problems occur, though, when a large person sits down in a chair adjusted for a light person. The chair immediately tips completely back, causing people to catch themselves, bolt out of the chair, and declare it a menace. A large person who just plops down in one of these chairs that's adjusted for a small person may very well find themselves dumped on their back on the floor. This is definitely not a good thing and makes the chair unsuitable for an office where chairs are shared. However, I personally felt it was by far the most comfortable chair when adjusted properly. (That opinion was almost universally shared by people who let me adjust the chair to their weight *before* they sat down. First impressions mean a lot.) If I had to get an ergo chair for myself, this would be my choice.
Equipping a large office to OSHA-compliant levels was expensive and difficult, but our experience in the new office environment convinces us that it's well worth it. In fact, despite the cost, I'm now in the middle of re-equipping my workstation at home. Today the gel-type wrist rest, tomorrow the Aeron!
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting. You say:
>
Why? Well:
>
If I correctly assume (and please disabuse me of the notion that your specific example isn't meant to be applied generally if that's the case) that you're saying "People who want to be anonymous just want to escape accountability," then I have to ask "Why not?"
There are plenty of times when escaping accountability is a very, very good thing. Some of those rabble-rousing pamphleteers who helped rile up those New World colonists into a revolutionary frenzy certainly had a good reason to want to escape responsibility. If you were some oppressed peasant getting beaten senseless because of trumped-up charges brought against you by the local mullah and you had some pictures of said mullah engaging in a sexual act with an animal or child not his wife, wouldn't it be just spiffy if you could post those pics to the net in complete anonymity?
In both cases, and a few thousand more that a little imagination could dream up, the reason total anonymity would be a good thing is not because, in general, escaping responsibility is a good thing. Anonymity in these cases is good because the price you pay for accepting responsibility can and often is set by people or institutions that are flat-out evil.
If you live in a place or time where the people who have power to punish you will use that power to hurt you for simply exercising the natural rights that all humans should have, then total anonymity can be a darn valuable thing. Where folks disagree these days is on whether we live in a world that meets that description.
That decision is up to you. Personally, I think that even if you believe that the political powers in your jurisdiction are moral, just, and competent, I'd still advise you keep the option of being anonymous just in case things go south in the future. Who knows what the world will look like in 20 years? I don't. I want the option.
Better yet, I wish total anonymity was the default.
Through long association with a variety of interest-based clubs and at-work organizations, I've learned the hard way that this is a very important question. You don't know ugly till you've seen a bunch of people screaming at each other in a power struggle to take over a silly little hobby group.
I've seen two successful formulas.
The first is: make it democratic. This is the one everyone aspires to but rarely achieves. A club usually has a core group that first thought it up. Can they be trusted to establish *truly* democratic procedures that may well, in the future, result in their baby being yanked from their control? Mighty unlikely. However, it is possible. Just make sure that everything is out in the open. Generally, things are set up that are nominally democratic but as soon as the founders start not getting unanimous votes of confidence on every issue, they start "gaming" the rules to keep themselves in power. To avoid this, some precautions are wise. To wit: The books *must* be independently audited at regular intervals and *must* be made available for members to review on demand. If you have someone who can enforce Robert's Rules, that's cool. It's just not very likely that anyone wants to go to the trouble. (I remember an experience I had with a fairly new hobby club once. I moved the previous question. All I got were blank stares. It was actually kinda funny, in retrospect.)
The second way of setting up a club is intellectually more honest and can result in a great club. The founder(s) can simply say "Join my club." They can then run it as they see fit. They can charge whatever dues they want, run meetings as they see fit, put on any events they want to, and report it all on Schedule C of their tax returns as a small business (which is exactly what it is). In these situations, the business owner (founder) simply has to keep in mind that he won't make any money unless he provides a high-quality experience for his customers (the club members). If he entirely ignores them, they'll just leave and start their own club. But if the founder can stay reasonable, this sort of organization makes for much more efficient administration. It's the only way to have a club where it's in the self-interest of the people running the club to make sure that the members have a good time.
The only clubs where I've seen *fatal* organizational errors are clubs that are founded and run by one or a few people but that claim to be democratic. That sort of setup is a recipe for failure.
Does anybody remember GEOS and Geoworks? It was a wonderfully cool OS and software suite that replaced most of DOS and provided a gorgeous GUI, excellent software (including an especially advanced word processor/semi-DTP program), speed, and "full pre-emptive multitasking" (argue on this one all you want). It ran like a champ on my 10Mhz 286 with 20 meg HD, 1 meg of RAM and 512K of video memory.
And it reached a usable level of maturity about the time MS released Windows 3.0. Case closed.
Where is it now? It morphed into a pen/portable/gadget OS and is, I suppose, still alive. Barely. (Go to geoworks.com to check it out.)
The point? Be is great and gorgeous as a desktop OS. Chasing the apparently fashionable market (appliances) of the moment, though, can be a foolish move when it involves abandoning/de-emphasizing your core competencies.
Careful, Be! I don't want to see you ignominiously fade away.
Why only a one-week supply????
...with the online component of this plan?
You might be able to find 30 people for the meatspace program who possess the mental ability, the spiritual strength, and the necessarily high level of physical fitness required to get through the program. That is dependent, of course, on the applicants suffering from sufficient mental maladjustment that they would actually volunteer to have absolutely no life for a solid year. It's also dependent on whatever extraordinary support measures these folks can get, be it the support of their peers or from other sources (that, I hope, you are contemplating providing).
But for online folks? Fugedaboutit. It just won't happen. No one will be able to maintain that pace for that time while motivated only by their internal drives and the flickering images on a CRT.
My question, then, is why bother with the online component since it's clearly doomed to failure? Or, do you define success for the online component differently, e.g. if people drop in and out, taking only a bit here and a bit there - would that equal success in your eyes?
So where do we go from here? Pinkerton isn't going to do the right thing, they're going to do the profitable thing. We, as a community, need to start doing whatever we can to take the profit out of WAVE. How? A few random thoughts (some of which have already been seen in previous posts):
1. Start sending in reports. Use a pay phone and start reporting the people who have the resources to best hurt the program:
lawyer's kids (all the better to drag this crap into court quicker),
popular jocks (so that the program appears to the customers to be targeting the wrong people),
congresscritter's kids (to lay a foundation for possible political solutions),
children of the members of the task force that thought this up (because the taskforce members deserve pain),
Pinkerton employee's kids (demoralizing the enemy never hurts),
and more.
Give some thoughts to these reports. Script them out if you have to. Make sure that your reports meet the criteria for pass-along and throw in some juicy details to get the security drones salivating.
2. Start hitting the potential customers. Make sure that schools know that if they participate, they are going to have to answer some tough questions. For example, if you have children attending a school that partakes in the program, demand to see the procedures for security on the tips they get from Pinkerton. Demand to know how they are safeguarded, what the retention schedule is, what actions will be taken when a tip is received, etc. For any private school, demand that their contract with you be modified to require that they report to you any tip received on your kids. Heck, demand open disclosure of the number and severity of *all* the tips received by the schools. Any lawyers in the house? In Texas, we could possibly use the Open Records Act to demand these things be made public. I don't know how it would work in the original state, but there's gotta be a way. If enough of these reports are disclosed to the public (remember, we're inflating the number of reports under action #1, above) and the public gets to see that there are never any shootings afterward, the program can start to just look like a waste of time and money.
3. Make this an issue in school board elections. "If you support anonymous snitching without adequate safeguards, ala WAVE, you won't get my vote! And I'll tell everyone I know to vote against you, too!"
4. Make sure that school boards hear about this during budget meetings. "This is a waste of money. We're spending good money here but getting nothing in return. We're just harassing a bunch of people who don't deserve it and setting ourselves up for lawsuits!"
5. Ancillary point: Demand of the school board of any school district that adopts the program that they increase funding for liability insurance. "After all, you guys bought this program that's sure to get us sued. You've got to protect the school district by doubling the amount of liability coverage."
6. Who's gonna start the anti-WAVE website? We've got to have a central clearinghouse for information. We need to know when WAVE is being considered for adoption by a school or when it is adopted. In that way, we can target the right individuals at that school for action. We can find and feed info to the people in a position to fight. Furthermore, such a site will provide a place for horror stories to accumulate and, by extension, a way to source expert witnesses (kids who've been hurt by all this) to testify about the practical evil of this sytem during the inevitable lawsuits. Perhaps just a continuing "WAVEWatch" feature on Slashdot would to the trick, or maybe even just a mailing list.
7. And I'll probably think of 20 more things by this afternoon. So can you! Reply to this and add to the list. Good plans of action start with wild brainstorming sessions. No matter how crazy an idea is, post it. It may inspire someone who needs it.
I work for a large federal agency where we're supposed to be C2. We're also mandated to use NT as our *only* OS for anything below certain minis and our mainframes. (Luckily, I work in an excepted function.) Sometime back, when it finally became clear that NT couldn't be certified C2, the powers-that-be simply issued an edict that NT had (and this is a precise quote) "achieved C2 functionality." In non-government language, that roughly translates to "we hafta use it so we're pretending it's OK."
:-)
As another poster has said, ya gotta love the government sometimes. Who else can simply change the rules when they become inconvenient?
It helps, of course, that our CIO apparently bows and prays to Redmond thrice daily.
...while I devolve into management consultant/workflow analysis mode.
This story reminds me of those four-place charts that we've all seen that prioritize tasks. Draw a square. Quarter it. Across the top, label the two columns "Urgent" and "Not Urgent." On the side, label the two rows "Important" and "Not Important." Now throw your tasks into those spaces. If a task winds up in the upper left corner, it's urgent and important. In the lower right, it's not urgent and not important.
It seems to me that all the speech was saying was (based, of course, on the extremely limited outline in the article that may or may not be accurate) that maybe the privacy-concerned members of our community were putting things in the wrong boxes. The threat of Big Brother knocking down your door is important, but it may not be as urgent as we like to think. On the other hand, keeping a kid from being shot is both urgent and pretty damn important.
Well, fine.
That attitude is important as far as it goes. Accusing privacy nuts of not seeing the forest for the trees can have a ring of truth. The problem, though, is that Big Brothers do eventually come to knock down doors. Neglecting important things (threats to privacy and, indeed, life and limb from government) because they aren't immediately urgent is a very dangerous thing, a veritable slippery slope of apathy that is mighty dangerous to ski on. Ignore the tasks in that "Important but Not Urgent" box and, sooner or later, as any experienced entrepeneur will tell you, you'll find those tasks jumping onto the "Urgent" side of the chart and you'll be ill-prepared to deal with them.
Stephenson is right in that we shouldn't argue principles to the exclusion of taking care of daily life. Unfortunately, though, we must adhere to principles, fret over them, agitate to protect them, and otherwise use our energy to make the world a better place for the great-great-grandchildren we will never see. If we don't, we ensure that those principles, those freedoms we took too much for granted will eventually be tested in ways no one desires. Neglect to fight the good fight in boardrooms, courts, and in politician's offices and someday you or your descendants will be forced to fight the good fight in the streets, by spilling real blood.
It's been said the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Well, that ain't just whistlin' Dixie. It's as true today as it ever was.
I'm an SA at a large law enforcement agency. Among my responsibilities are the computers our officers use in the field. They carry large amounts of SBU (sensitive but unclassified, for those of you familiar with the protection classes used by us feds) data everywhere they go. After every three fumble-fingered attempts to log on results in a lock, I assign a valid password, do a passwd -f , hand-deliver the replacement and stand over them while they log on and change passwords. They view it as a royal PITA.
:-)
Good.
Since I started doing it this way, the number of forgotten passwords has dropped to zero and the screwed-up logons are mighty rare. Bad consequences for screwing up are a useful tool in convincing people not to screw up. Of course, I only have about 250 users to watch over. In a bigger organization, this level of personal service would be difficult. For my situation, though, this works fine. (It helps that I'm a former officer so I can get away with bullying my users like this.)
btw - We are a 100% SCO Unix shop (OS 5.0.4), from the servers to the laptops. There's not a hint of Windows anywhere on my network. And that's the way I like it.
Over and over and over again it has been pointed out that published criteria for identifying potentially violent kids select far, far more folks who are benign but different than folks with a propensity to violence. It's part of the methodology. The errors are built in.
.And by "innocent people," I mean the folks who are wrongly fingered.
In some cases, such as the Secret Service profiling of potential threats that recently made the news, the identified "potentials" are evaluated by highly trained, experienced personnel who can make, on the whole, reasonable judgements about how to proceed. That's not the case here. No matter how good the Pinkerton guys are (note that I didn't say "goons;" no use resurrecting past bad acts), a program like WAVE will produce so many false positives that they can't all receive the careful attention that would be required to weed out the bad referrals. It just can't happen. People aren't lines of code that can be grep'd out of the whole based on discrete, uncontovertible characteristics that identify violent tendencies.
So here's my question: How on earth do these folks think they can ensure that whoever winds up looking at these referrals does a competent job of making decisions that can, if made badly, have horrible consequences for innocent people?
As I approach my 40th birthday and look back on my life, I breathe a sigh of relief that we didn't have things like this when I was a kid. Why? Because I know in my heart of hearts that I would have been fingered under such a program, even though I turned out just fine.
It probably wouldn't be too difficult to find a couple of thousand (or a few hundred thousand) other folks who can say the same. What do the Pinkerton folks have to say to people like me? "You were a weird kid and someone should have been spying on you?" To what purpose?
Pardon me while I go off in a blue funk and ponder how to make all this better. I may have no kids of my own, but I owe to every child my dedication to stopping the forces that would spy on them for being sad or smart or inspired or insightful or thoughtful.
This puzzles me. Where I went, Rice U. in Houston, we were essentially *required* to critique our profs. This was a long time ago and things may have changed by now, but it was a good system at the time. Our write-ups (they didn't have to be huge, but most students took them quite seriously) were used by the University in the evaluation of profs. How much impact did they have? According to my advisor at the time "They're the difference between getting tenure and not getting it." It would be rare for negative reviews to have any more impact than that, but if someone were as big a jerk as the prof who's suing teacherreview, they would have certainly caused the university to closely monitor the teacher in question.
Other schools don't invite students to rate their instructors? Other schools don't take action based on what those students have to say? If so, that just ain't right.
try Kalispel Metal Products. It'll be heavy, but those guys will custom build anything for a price. Nearly all the Olympic Shooting Team members use their products for good reason. Talk about quality! Slip one into a suitably courier-like cover, and you might have something appealing.
Of course, this applies basically if you want a travel case. If you want something light enough to carry around, look elsewhere. Personally, I think the folks who specialize in camera bags do a great job. Domke and Billingham are excellent names and I wouldn't be surprised if they had something that appealed to you.
This is just the kernel of a new thought, but...
Mattel's signature product is Barbie. They help throw a big Barbie convention every year. It's attended by thousands of folks, including swarms of press. This year, it will be in Oklahoma City in June.
Is there a Linux/Open Source/whatever group in OKC that could organize a protest? You could *definitely* get local news air time. You could probably get a lot more exposure than that. In fact, if you play your cards right, you could tap into the anti-Mattel sentiment in the Barbie world. Ya see, Mattel has sent out hundreds of cease and desist letters and filed more than a few lawsuits against Barbie fans who dared to post anything even slightly negative about Barbie on the web. Pink Anger is the first group that comes to mind. Hook up with some of the more radical members therein and you could definitely aggravate the heartburn of many Mattel executives.
Just a thought...
"...at the USPTO (not in the software division) and I am disturbed by how their compensation and advancement structure is so quantity oriented"
Right on.
I find it fascinating that such practices still exist where *judgement* is so critical. Has everyone forgotten that Congress had a collective fit not so long ago about a similar situation at the IRS? Paying attention to production numbers caused employees to fail to discharge their duty to the public fairly. Instead, employees were busy just racking up dollars collected or taxpayers audited; fairness and insightful analysis got thrown out the window in some cases. So what happened? Public hearings, much press coverage, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and donning of hair shirts, that's what. Eventually, laws got changed and those abuses were knocked down.
The fact that most of the abuses didn't actually exist and we're now finding out that it's not good to structure the tax law so that tax collectors are afraid to collect tax is beside the point, here. The lesson where the USPTO is concerned is that only a broad-based public perception of harm to innocent individuals can produce the sort of anecdotal sound bites that get laws changed. We need to find some people whose lives have been ruined by this crap and start trotting them out in front of the evening news cameras. This may not be the intellectually honest approach we'd like to see, but since when has a reasoned explanation of the harm caused by a law, government entity, or silly regulation sufficed to get the situation changed over the objection of moneyed interests? No time I can think of.
We need poster children. Anybody have any nominations?
I think lots of folks are confusing "no sales tax" with "no obligation to collect sales tax." The two are the not the same. When the author of the article says:
"...much online retailing involves purchases that would otherwise be conducted with paper catalogs and 800 numbers--and thus not taxed anyway. "
he's being a tad misleading. No, the purchases wouldn't be taxed but that's not because tax isn't owed. It's just because the tax is hard to collect. Later, he goes on to say:
"If states had a cost-effective method of policing mail-order sales, they would already be collecting taxes on them. (Most states with sales taxes ostensibly require "user taxes" on goods purchased elsewhere.) The only rational explanation why states do not collect significant taxes on out-of-state purchases is that it is simply not worth the trouble. Collection costs for the government, business, and consumers evidently exceed the expected revenue. "
he touches on correcting his earlier mistake, but still doesn't quite grok the situation.
Let's take an example. You retire and move to Florida. After settling in for a few months, you decide to buy a housefull of furniture to replace your old, ratty stuff. So you make the pilgrimage to High Point NC, the center of the furniture universe (at least in the U.S.), check out the huge manufacturer's showrooms, and buy USD$50K in furniture for delivery to your home in Jupiter FL.
The furniture company doesn't collect the sales tax because the sale is to an out-of-state destination. They have no obligation to collect tax for FL. **BUT** the state of FL **DOES** require the payment of sales tax on sales into the state. FL just doesn't know about the sale yet. Theoretically, when you receive your housefull of furniture, you're supposed to contact the state sales tax folks, report the purchase, and remit the sales tax directly to them. You, the purchaser, are still supposed to pay the tax.
Big deal, right? Nobody ever reports those sales, right? Well, maybe, but that doesn't mean you escape paying the tax. Florida made a big splash in the taxation press years ago when *exactly* the scenario described above (furniture ordered from out of state by retirees)began happening with some frequency. They began posting sales tax people at weigh stations and having them tag along on truck inspections. The sales tax people would inspect the manifest, determine the value of the merchandise being delivered, and send out bills for sales tax to the recipients.
So what's my point?
Sales tax on cross-border sales has always existed. The people who want to "tax the internet" in this area, at least, have a pretty firm footing. They are only trying to use new tools to enforce laws already on the books.
Of course, they're screwing up the whole process royally by trying to foist the responsibility for collecting off on the sellers. They don't like the idea of billing each and every one of their residents individually for their internet purchases.
And also of course, the practical problems pointed out in the article basically swamp any point I've made in this post. Internet taxation has so many problems for so little reward that it'll turn out to be an unprofitable PITA.
...sarcasm on
The solution? As another poster has already suggested, junk the sales tax everywhere. While we're at it, let's junk the bad 'ole income tax and every other tax that nobody likes (that's all of 'em, btw) and go live in some Utopia where no government needs any revenue to pay for any basic governmental functions because everyone lives in respectful peace and harmony and takes care of each other.
...sarcasm off
While I understand and accept the basic fairness of 'net taxation, I just don't think it's practical. So what to do? I dunno. If I figger it out, I'll git me a job wit one o'dem fancy think tank thingies...
I'm not kidding, here. For inspiration that applies to this contest, check /. for the Beacon School piece that was posted a couple of stories back. I went to their site and opened a whole bunch of the student home pages. Some of them seem to have just discovered frames, some have blown off the whole idea, and some of them include so many animations they make hamsterdance.com look dignified. BUT - Some of them have small, simple pages that communicate elegantly without being simplistic. I will definitely rip off...er...derive inspiration from some of those pages for my on-the-job html.
What I find interesting is the way a subpoena for email might be worded and what actions it might require of the person holding data.
:-)
I work for a large government agency where all email is saved forever because everyone is accountable for everything they do for all time. That's fine. We're public sector law enforcement; we should have such rules. Recently, though, an employee sued the agency and requested all email files. Our lawyers argued that such a subpoena would be overbroad and would reveal a great many private things shouldn't be made public. The judge agreed and a compromise was worked out. Several years worth of Microsoft Exchange backup tapes were sequentially reloaded on a system set up for the purpose. Each time a tape was restored, all files were searched for a text string matching the name of the woman who brought the suit. Then, all emails that contained her name were *printed out* and delivered to her lawyers. Not surprisingly, lots of folks had been jabbering about this woman in email, so there were boxes and boxes of printouts. It took the poor admin assigned the task literally weeks to complete, but at least there was no way for all sorts of extraneous data to go public.
Contrast that situation with the situation of the airline employees who found their computers seized. Were they entirely without recourse? Were they not given a chance to produce the documents without having to turn over their hardware? I don't know, but I do know that if such a thing happened to me, I'd be less than happy. I have lots conventionally encrypted files that are relatively safe since the only copy of the password is in my head. But would I be willing to sit out a contempt citation to protect that data? Talk about feeling conflicted!!
Short side note: There are a zillion different circumstances when testimony *can* be compelled. I'm surprised by the number of posters who don't understand that 5th amendment protections are often non-existent, especially in civil actions. They can even be circumvented in criminal actions rather easily, assuming you aren't the primary target of the prosecution. I guess high school civics classes aren't what they used to be.
IANAL, of course.
This brings up two personally relevant items for me that others may find illustrative.
The first is laserdiscs. They were advertised as permanent. After all, what could go wrong? The media was sealed in plastic and couldn't get any air, so deterioration was impossible, right? Wrong! "Laser rot" became obvious within a few years of the introduction of the technology. There are now gazillions of first-generation (and later) discs that are simply unreadable. I have dozens of them and can personally attest to the sinking feeling that comes with seeing data degrade and become unavailable. (In a similar vein, music CDs will degrade while the vinyl they "replaced" will, given proper care, soldier on for another century or two. And records sound better/hold more data, too. CDs were supposed to be an improvement?!?) The lesson? Don't trust industry shills who tell you a technology is good for 100 years. They simply don't know.
The second example is more personal. As a former photographer, I have some works that I want to preserve forever. Maybe I'm conceited enough to think that in a thousand years my works will be found and I'll be proclaimed a great artist. Maybe I'm just anal. Either way, I want my photos to be around for a long, long time. Now, properly processed silver halide-based film is pretty stable. My negatives will last a long time. But for the ultimate in longevity, I've begun making platinum-based prints on a variety of media, including plastic squares and enamel tiles. If I can find a source of enameled titanium squares (about 10 inches or so), I'll have a combination of media and chemicals that can reasonably be expected to last for a couple of thousand years. The lesson? True long-term data integrity sometimes requires an open-minded approach. If I rejected platinum processes because they were 100 years old, I'd have never discovered their permanence.
Until someone can come up with a novel way to store data that is truly permanent, I'll rely on the "bigger hard drives, cheaper, every year" theory to keep my data safe. But I don't really feel good about it.
I find it terribly interesting that people shout back and forth about "I'm an employee!", "I'm an independent contractor!" or some other such thing without the foggiest notion of what they *actually* are. In fact, the definition of employee and of independent contractor are matters of law. No contract that you can sign between yourself and someone who pays you money can change that. If the contract says you're an independent, if both parties agree you're an independent, if nearly everyone accepts that you're an independent BUT your individual circumstances meet the definition of an employee, then you ARE an employee. Period. You can sign contracts and make agreements to the contrary all day long and it doesn't matter one whit.
Different agencies at the federal, state, and local level work under different statutes. And yes, they are a mess, generally using vague language that may well result in someone being an employee to the Internal Revenue Service but an independent contractor to the Department of Labor. Or vice-versa. Most agencies, though, wind up falling back on the 20 common law factors used by the IRS or a variation thereof. (That situation is in flux right now, but the 20 common law factors still rule for tax purposes, even if the new kinder and gentler IRS is so gun-shy that they're not really enforcing them.) Take a look at them on IRS Form SS-8, Determination of Employee Work Status For Purposes of Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax.
Work through that form and you might be surprised. I think a lot of "independent contractors" will find that they are actually employees. And if they're employees, aren't they entitled to the benefits a company extends to employees?
Linux has been on the COTS list at some agencies for a long time. At my agency, it's approved for DNS servers "at boundary," although Win NT Server 4.0 is the primary platform. That doesn't explain why some poking around on our intranet reveals a number of sites with a decidedly counter(internal)culture feel. Y'know, sites where anyone can pick up a copy of Perl or Linux. Sites that display little "Best Viewed With vi" buttons. I get the feeling there's more penetration into the government market than anyone yet appreciates.
:-)
Still, on paper, M$ has a near-total monopoly around here. For example, the only authorized "web-maker" (direct quote from our official COTS list) software on our COTS list is FrontPage. Theoretically, I'm not allowed to edit my web pages in vi. At least I get a smile on my face every time I do.
This argument is based on the premise that the error of using excessive force doesn't precipitate fights that would otherwise have been avoided. One need only compare the results of the local sherrif's visits to Koresh & Co (courteous and professional resolution of the issue at hand) and those of the BATF's visit (eighty-six bodies on the deck) to refute this notion. Given that an error in either direction can produce tragic results, the only responsible policy is to calibrate the application of force to the threat level.
No. Available force should be sufficient to control the situation. While the Andy Taylor school of law enforcement works fine most of the time, I wouldn't want to bet my life on it. IOW, an excess of available force is never a bad thing except that it's a slight waste of money. Of course, when that force is not just available but *used* injudiciously, you wind up with serious heartache, bloodshed, and violations of constitutional rights. But that's not what we're talking about here.
The Waco raid, though, is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. The BATF did not err in the level of resources thrown at the problem. They erred in pursuing their plan after the element of surprise had been compromised. Outside of a war, that's guaranteed to cause grief. Whoever made the decision to proceed after the element of surprise was lost should be hung. Two of the LEOs who died that day were known to me, one as more than an acquaintance though less than a friend. Their senseless deaths still enrage me, as does the senseless destruction of innocent life that eventually resulted from the pantheon of errors committed by law enforcement over the next weeks. But, again, that's not what we're talking about here, is it?
>
Your evidence for this rather irresponsible assertion (you are accusing people of perjury and slander, which is itself slanderous if untrue) disappeared somewhere between your keyboard and my screen
Yes, I am accusing people of perjury and slander.
The star witnesses were Colaprete and Long.
For information showing how Colaprete lied his ass off, see the December 9, 1999 edition of The Wall Street Journal. The story, by staff reporter John D. McKinnon, is entitled Highly Publicized Horror Story That Led to Curbs On IRS Quietly Unravels in Virginia Civil Court. In it, you'll find lengthy descriptions of how Colaprete testified to Congress with factual descriptions of things that happened when he was not even present. And more.
For information showing how Long lied her ass off, contact the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and ask for a copy of their report on her allegations. It goes on for pages, point by point, showing that nearly everything she said was unsubstantiated or could not be confirmed, even though they had her cooperation and assistance. (In fairness, she did manage to make a couple of partly-correct minor points about internal workings at the IRS. Her allegations about bad treatment of the public, though, were entirely horseshit.)
Heck, for some good insight into what Long was up to, just review the filings in her suit against the U.S. Government in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, JENNIFER J. LONG, Plaintiff vs. ROBERT E. RUBIN, Secretary of the Treasury, Defendant, CIVIL ACTION NO. H 97-3239. Just her video deposition of August 24, 1998, is enough to make you laugh out loud at her tortured prevarications, cry for all the people she's slandered, and rage at Congress for believing her idiocy.
But politics marches on. For information showing how the Government Accounting Office report that Colaprete and Long lied was suppressed by Senator Roth, see the Tax Analysts story at their document number Doc 1999-19180. Roth, heading up the Senate Finance Committee that conducted the hearings, kept the final report secret for reasons he has failed to adequately explain. Perhaps because the report would show that he and his committee were played like a violin by Colaprete and Long?
When you've read those documents, you'll see that no evidence disappeared between my keyboard and your screen. I just failed to cite it right off the bat because I was under the mistaken impression that nearly everyone already knew these things.
I find some of the comments about, to paraphrase, "procedural issues" during the raid to be a tad naive.
There was a time when I carried a commission and conducted numerous CIVIL seizures of property for a large federal agency. Those are different in many ways from what is being described here, but some of the experience carries over. The objects of my seizures usually knew I was coming and often would have their property stacked and inventoried, waiting for my arrival. When I had my way, things were far more casual.
Be that as it may, there were often cases where I knew, going in, that things were going to be contentious. Maybe I'd take armed escorts. Maybe I'd just take more unarmed officers. In a number of cases I found myself wishing we'd come into a situation with more force because the control I was able to maintain over the premises was a bit too tenuous for comfort.
With that as background, I'd like to make a few specific points.
The number of people taking part in the raid was not, from the description, excessive. Just controlling all the entrances and exits and having enough eyes to watch everybody could easily take a half-dozen folks.
The intimidation factor present was not unusual or uncalled for. When a raid happens, the safety of everyone depends on the ability of the officers to lock down the premises and control the actions of everyone inside. That means moving quickly and with sufficient force that no one even contemplates active resistance. That also means that, in the overwhelming majority of raids, the subject of the raid feels terribly picked on because of the excessive government resources directed at them and how the whole situation makes them feel. I'm sorry about that but it's necessary. The alternative (trying to more-precisely balance the forces brought to bear with the perceived level of potential resistance) would mean that when the government makes a mistake and underestimates the resistance to be encountered, bullets start flying and people start dying. Saving most people in most raids from feeling intimidated by using less force and manpower isn't worth the cost of occasionally getting into a shootout.
The failure to get everything right on the inventory isn't surprising. I've seized inventories consisting of hundreds of items and I know that mistakes happen. What surprises me is that the agents were able to easily dig out the wrong items and correct the inventory on the spot.
One final point - the raid description is coming from someone who wasn't there when it started. That means this article starts out with bunches of second-hand info that is, basically by definition, less reliable than eyewitness testimony. Take it all with a grain of salt for now. After all, as we saw in 1998 and 1999 with the Senate hearings investigating the IRS, just because people tell a sad story doesn't mean it's true. (FYI for those of you who didn't already know - In the months since the IRS hearings, the star witnesses have basically been shown to have been lying their asses off.)
Just my $.02. I agree that government raids have been done badly, for political or evil reasons, and that people have been needlessly hurt in the past. I just want to stress that we have no idea who's wearing the white, black, and gray hats in this one and we probably won't know for a long, long time.
We draw the line (here in the United States) where the Second Amendment to our Constitution draws it. That text refers to a right to keep and bear arms, not artillery. The two terms were self-evidently distinct to the people who voted on the thing. Both terms have evolved over the years and I'm not wont to write pages of exposition on the subject. Check out a good military history/textbook.
Getting back to the subject at hand, though, your question does bring up a good parallel between gun rights and DVD rights, that being the distinction between things individuals should be able to do (bear arms; copy for your own use) and things that governments (arguably) have a legit interest in regulating or prohibiting (artillery/heavy weapons; efforts to prevent commercial-level piracy).
It's amazing how a consistent philosophical perspective brings order to chaos, isn't it? I guess that's why ESR's sig on this particular email just doesn't bother me. When you think deeply enough, it *is* on-topic.
Hear, hear!
I was one of the lucky and very rare people who got onto a project where TQ was: (1) taught, (2) implemented, and (3) given the time and support required for success.
Even in my own organization, nearly everyone got #1 and #2, but #3 was neglected. With us (some kind of radical fluke situation, I'm now convinced), we saw all the wonderful performance gains and productivity increases that TQ promised. We also saw the initial drop in productivity while we got into the method. It was during that time that every other project I'm familiar with got shut down. Some of these methodologies do work.
Ultimately, my conclusion was that various methods work when they are committed to and given time to work. They "get everybody on the same page." Oftentimes, they provide a common frame of reference and language for describing problems that make achieving goals easy once everyone knows the language and uses it religiously! Getting to that point, though, takes time. And time is what most IT shops just don't have.
These systems exist for many of the same reasons we have our jargon. By adopting a common language, we can communicate quickly with our peers. That's valuable. How would you like to be forced to explain every programming problem in language my completely non-technical mother could understand? It could be done, but it wouldn't be worth the effort. These methodologies accomplish the same thing with management problems as our tech jargon gives us with tech problems - they give everyone a common language and base of understanding on which successful communication can be built.
But half-assed implementations are doomed to failure. And nearly everything gets done half-assed these days. :-(
I think I appreciate ergo setups more than most people. My best friend has carpal tunnel, severely exacerbated by fibromyalgia. When she has a good day, she has a good day. When she has a bad day, her husband has to brush her teeth for her.
With that in mind, I was very enthused about a year ago when my employer put together a union/management team to begin changing the workplace and upgrading it to OSHA compliance as far as ergonomics. After lots of meetings, we put over 200 people in full ergo setups and learned a few things along the way. Here's a smattering:
1. Classes in using all these new toys were absolutely necessary. For example, every computer is now on a multi-adjustable corner metier table that makes perfect positioning a snap *after* you've been to class. People who tried to set them up before receiving formal instruction tended to wind up with weird and painful configurations.
2. When picking an adjustable table, make sure the keyboard surface is height- and tilt-adjustable completely separately from the CRT.
3. Those expensive gel-type wrist rests are *wonderful*! Everyone seems to love them.
4. When we bought supplies at a "trial" ratio (getting just a couple of units for every dozen people to try so that we could see who wanted things before committing money), we found that scarcity makes people want things. For example, experience has shown that only about 10 percent of users will actually use a separate foot rest. (Ours are nice ones by Rubbermaid.) Thus, we bought them on a ratio of one to five users and figured they'd get passed around till the people that actually needed them wound up with them. Ha! Not a chance! As soon as the workers saw that these things were going to be scarce, they all suddenly felt a need to latch onto one. The initial shipment went like loaves of bread off the back of a U.N. relief truck and the have-nots have been screaming for the things ever since. (Unfortunately, the money it will take to equip everybody isn't in the budget right now.) I know that when we finally get one for each person, most of them will wind up in a corner, gathering dust. But compliance with the Union agreement trumps all else and we'll have to find the money.
5. As for telephone headsets, I consider them a valuable ergo accessory. Unfortunately, we bungled their distribution the same way as the footrests.
6. Chairs were a huge problem. If you're putting new chairs in a large unionized shop, do what we did: Let the Union pick the chair. People are pretty picky about where they park their butts all day. We knew that whatever we chose would be hated by someone enough for them to file a grievance. By letting the Union do the choosing, management totally avoided the problem. "You don't like your chair? It hurts your back? Sure, you can file a grievance. Just figure out a way to file it against your own Union! Hahahahaha!!!"
7. As a Union member, I oversaw the chair selection. We narrowed the field to about 10 different chairs based on basic OSHA specs and the ability of vendors to meet those specs and get us samples. We then had every employee come into the sample display room in rotation, sit in every chair, and vote. The final selection was a high-backed fully adjustable chair with the name "SuperFurntiture" embossed on the back. I have no idea who actually made the thing, but just about everybody could live with them. They don't have too many adjustments and they don't have any detachable accessories, but everybody can get them into a configuration that's acceptable.
8. Another chair that was available for vote broke during the voting. You know that when a chair back snaps and dumps an employee on their butt right in front of everyone, nobody is going to vote for that one! However, this particular chair was "modular" according to the sales rep. Everything could unplug and be replaced. At first, this looked like a versatile option. We eventually realized, however, that what it really meant was having to buy, warehouse, and install a mind-boggling array of accessories that would make for serious administrative headaches. I was very glad this chair broke and I would counsel people to avoid any such chairs that seem to have been designed by guys who spent too much time playing with Transformers when they were kids.
9. The Aeron chair referenced in the lead-in was a very interesting case. People either loved or hated it. There was almost no in-between. The problem with it is that it's TOO adjustable. It uses a huge wind-up (watch-type? I don't know what to call it.) spring to set the basic firmness of the chair. Loosened up, it's suitable for a 70-pound waif. Tightened up, it's suitable for a 300-pound guy like me. Problems occur, though, when a large person sits down in a chair adjusted for a light person. The chair immediately tips completely back, causing people to catch themselves, bolt out of the chair, and declare it a menace. A large person who just plops down in one of these chairs that's adjusted for a small person may very well find themselves dumped on their back on the floor. This is definitely not a good thing and makes the chair unsuitable for an office where chairs are shared. However, I personally felt it was by far the most comfortable chair when adjusted properly. (That opinion was almost universally shared by people who let me adjust the chair to their weight *before* they sat down. First impressions mean a lot.) If I had to get an ergo chair for myself, this would be my choice.
Equipping a large office to OSHA-compliant levels was expensive and difficult, but our experience in the new office environment convinces us that it's well worth it. In fact, despite the cost, I'm now in the middle of re-equipping my workstation at home. Today the gel-type wrist rest, tomorrow the Aeron!
:-)